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Commissioning: A New Buzz Word?
Why it pays to take a womb-to-tomb view of commissioning

By David R. Hague, P.E. | Fire Protection Engineering

Commissioning has been around for a long time, but it
has been traditionally considered the testing and startup of a system or
component. Most project managers in the construction trade would
consider commissioning to occur at the end of a project when the
system(s) have been installed and are ready for testing and turnover to
the building owner. That is the way things have been done for many
years. Commissioning in other trades has basically meant the same thing.
Ships are commissioned when completely built and ready for launch. The
space station was commissioned when its main core was assembled and
ready for occupancy. An HVAC system is commissioned after final testing
and balancing are performed.

So how has commissioning changed? Well,
that can be answered by the philosophy of commissioning as a
womb-to-tomb process where commissioning begins in the planning phase of
a project and continues during construction (including acceptance
testing) and throughout the service life of a building or system. That's
not to say that FPEs continually test and inspect an existing system or
building as vigorously as during construction. But part of the
philosophy of commissioning is to prepare the maintenance staff for the
inspection, testing and ongoing maintenance needs of the system so the
system will function as intended, with as few issues as possible,
throughout its entire service life. This is a process that Liberty
Mutual refers to as human element-keeping systems functioning at all
times.

Every construction project can be divided into four basic components:
pre-design (or planning), design, construction and occupancy.
Commissioning must play a part in all of these phases. In the pre-design
phase, the owner (who pays for all of this work) establishes the
project requirements and determines whether commissioning is needed at
all. During the design phase, commissioning may take the form of
oversight of the design to provide a system of checks and balances to
verify that the installation complies with the project specifications.
During construction, commissioning may require periodic inspections of
the installation, pre-functional testing and acceptance testing
activities. And, during the occupancy phase, commissioning involves
development and submission of turnover documentation (operation and
maintenance manuals and as-built drawings and calculations), training of
personnel and the establishment of an ongoing inspection, testing and
maintenance program.

PRE-DESIGN PHASE

The pre-design or planning phase should
include a discussion with the owner's planning team to determine the
complexity of the project, which will in turn drive the need for a
formal commissioning program. The owner's planning team usually consists
of the owner or owner's representative; the design team, consisting of
the architect and other design professionals; the insurance
representative; installing contractor; manufacturer's representatives;
the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) and, if needed, the
commissioning team.

The planning team may also include a facility manager and
third party testing representative. Together, in addition to the usual
project planning tasks, this group should develop the owner's project
requirements (OPR) for commissioning. The OPR will establish the
requirements for all of the commissioning activities and should include
the following items at a minimum:

Infrastructure requirements (roads, site access, utilities)

Facility type, size and height

Intended use

Occupancy classification, number of occupants, and hours of operation

Future expansion requirements

Applicable codes and standards

Specific user requirements

Training requirements

Warrantee and operation and maintenance requirements

Integrated system requirements

Specific performance criteria

Third party requirements

Producing this information in the initial
stages of a project can help prevent any misunderstanding of the
project requirements and can help avoid the possibility of costly
re-work or change orders. For example, Liberty Mutual has "Interpretive
Guides" to several NFPA standards and the firm's loss prevention
engineers ensure that the design team is fully aware of these
requirements when specifying a fire protection system for a
policyholder's property. It is important to note that each project will
have its own unique characteristics.

While the project team should be aware of
the roles played by each entity on the team, for the commissioning
agent the main focus will be project oversight, which generally
includes:

Establishment and execution of a commissioning plan

Review of installation and record documents

Documentation of any deviation from the OPR and recording of any issues in an issues log

Witness of pre-functional and acceptance testing

Recommend acceptance of the system to the owner

Submission of the final commissioning report to the owner

The commissioning plan, which should
contain all elements of the activities of the commissioning team,
normally includes the following information:

Commissioning scope and overview specific to the project

General project information as outlined in the OPR

Fire protection and life safety commissioning team members, roles and responsibilities

General communication plan and protocol

Commissioning process tasks and activities through all phases

Commissioning schedule

Required commissioning process documentation and deliverables

Required testing procedures

Recommended training

Establishment of a comprehensive operations and maintenance procedure

Because a commissioning agent will most
likely oversee testing of interconnected systems, it is imperative that
the commissioning team fully understands all aspects of the project in
order to develop and execute the commissioning plan.

DESIGN PHASE

Much of the design phase of a project
involving commissioning includes the development of a basis of design
(BOD) document or narrative report in addition to the design. The BOD
document is intended to provide project design details that may not be
readily apparent in the design documents. The BOD should include the
thought process used in the design as well as a thorough description of
the proposed systems and how the systems are expected to work together.
This description should also include an analysis of system interactions
and how these interactions will impact the independent operation of the
individual systems.

As the industry moves forward with more performance-based
design versus prescriptive design, a detailed description of systems
and their interaction will become even more necessary. Because this is
performance-based design, without this detailed information, it will be
impossible to determine what the design intent was initially. This would
not necessarily be an issue with prescriptive design. The BOD should
contain the following elements:

A description of the building or structure

A description of the proposed systems and components

Performance objectives and criteria

Codes and standards used

Acceptance testing and other startup requirements

Inspection, testing and maintenance requirements

The BOD should be prepared and submitted
for review concurrently or prior to any design drawings or calculations.
The information contained in the BOD is essential for a complete
understanding of the function and design intent of the proposed systems.
While this information is not necessarily required by any of the
applicable installation codes or standards, it will be very useful
during review of the design drawings and calculations.

For example, performance objectives and
criteria may include a matrix of the system interactions intended by the
design team. This is helpful because it is not always readily apparent
what interactions are necessary when a sprinkler waterflow switch or a
fire alarm smoke detector activates. While acceptance testing
requirements are well established in each individual installation
standard, the requirements for interconnected systems testing are not as
widely known. The BOD can help explain the requirements for
interconnected systems as well as many other design questions.

Integrated systems. The
design methodology for integrated systems should take into account a
number of factors including what type of material and equipment are
interconnected. The testing requirements for individual systems are very
well established in each respective installation standard but testing
of the entire integrated system of sprinkler, smoke control and fire
alarm is not addressed in any current code or standard. The testing of
the final interconnection of all of these systems must be addressed and
included in the BOD and should be managed by a formal commissioning
program.

Additionally, the BOD should document how the interconnected systems
operate and communicate to achieve the intended outcome and should
clearly demonstrate that operation of interconnected systems does not
impair the functionality of other systems or components unless intended
to do so.

The sequence of operation of interconnected systems and location of
interconnections should be delineated in the BOD including a procedure
and frequency for testing because no code or standard currently requires
such information.

CONSTRUCTION PHASE

Most of the commissioning activity takes
place during the construction phase. The most important activities in
this process are 1) witnessing and verifying compliance with the
approved shop drawings and product data submittals by performing
inspections of the installed systems and equipment and 2) witnessing and
verifying pre-functional testing and acceptance testing of systems and
components. Each of these activities must be documented with any
identified problems or issues noted and the appropriate corrective
action taken before occupancy.

The construction phase will require many
coordination meetings in the field to schedule and complete verification
of the installation and testing. The construction phase also includes
compilation of the turn-over documentation or "as-builts" and initiation
of the training program established in the commissioning plan.

An important part of commissioning is the
development and submittal of project closeout documentation. Not only
must a complete and accurate set of as-built drawings and calculations
be included in this submittal, but a copy of all test reports and a
comprehensive list of materials, equipment and contact information for
equipment suppliers must be compiled. As a minimum, project closeout
documents should include:

Compiled list of all deficiencies and resolutions including verification of corrective action

Operations and maintenance manuals

Documentation of test results and certificates

As-built drawings and calculations

Warranties

Recommended spare parts lists and supplier listings

Re-commissioning plan (periodic integrated testing)

Sequences of operation

Basis of design

OCCUPANCY PHASE

The occupancy phase occurs when
construction is complete, acceptance testing is verified and documented
and the final submittals, such as operation and maintenance manuals, are
delivered. It is at this time that formal training of operating
personnel is conducted.

This is a critical aspect of commissioning since
it is the operating personnel who care for the ongoing operation of the
building and systems. Because many operating personnel may not be very
well versed in the operation and maintenance or even the intended
function of fire protection systems, training related specifically to
these systems is especially important. Under the commissioning process,
design documentation will also occur during the occupancy phase,
hopefully eliminating the scenario where fire protection professionals
need good documentation to redesign or update an existing system only to
find that none exists.

THE FUTURE

If commissioning is simply an additional
quality assurance checkpoint, why further add to the cost of the
construction process with additional paperwork and another inspection?
Formal commissioning addresses the scenarios where an installing
contractor may not be prepared to test a system when the fire marshal
arrives on site or individual contractors are either not prepared to, or
do not understand the need to, test interconnected systems. Further,
once construction is completed and the building is occupied, building
owners often do not have the appropriate turnover documentation for the
newly installed systems.

Commissioning is not intended for every project. A
small project or one that is relatively straightforward only requires
the submittal and acceptance testing requirements of the appropriate
installation standard. Commissioning is designed for larger, more
complex projects.

There are two main reasons why a building owner - who is
funding the project - might consider commissioning:

The project is large and very complex
and commissioning could provide a cost reduction by identifying
inefficiencies through a best practices approach to construction.

The project is undergoing Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) or Green Globes certification, in
which case commissioning is mandatory.

With the U.S. Green Building Council
forecasting growth in LEED and Green Globes construction to double
between now and 2013, more buildings will be required to complete a
formal commissioning process in order to meet these certification
standards. Perhaps this increase in commissioned projects will make the
industry more comfortable with the commissioning process as well as
streamline the process to make it less onerous.

Until then, building owners with projects
that will not be certified to LEED or Green Globes will need to
determine whether or not their project is "complex" enough to justify
the time and expense associated with a formal commissioning process. A
properly commissioned system can pay dividends over its service life by
not needing as much maintenance and ser vice as a system that was not
the subject of a formal commissioning program.

As the industry moves forward towards
commissioning, there are several organizations that are involved with
and are proactive in the commissioning process.

The National Institute of Building
Sciences (NIBS) is currently developing a set of 11 guidelines covering
total building commissioning. These guidelines will include all aspects
of a building and its systems.

ASTM International has assembled a working group (Task Group E06.55.09) to develop a New Practice for Exterior Enclosure Commissioning.
This project is an expansion of part of the forthcoming NIBS guideline
and translates that information into an enforceable standard.

The Portland Energy Council has developed a guideline1 on commissioning. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has published The Building Commissioning Guide2
designed for project managers, commissioning agents and other
stakeholders in the commissioning process. The guide provides an
overview of the commissioning process including planning, design,
construction and post-construction phases of a project.

The Building Commissioning Association's
(BCA) mission is to guide the building commissioning industry through
advancing best practices and education and promoting the benefits of
building commissioning. The BCA has many publications related to the
commissioning of buildings and systems including the Building Commissioning Handbook.3

The National Fire Protection Association has published a book titled Commissioning Fire Protection Systems4 and
is presently developing a document on the subject. The draft document,
although not complete as of this writing, should be available in 2011.
The recommended practice, which has been under development since
December 2007, presently includes recommendations for testing of
interconnected systems with a sample testing matrix illustrating
potential interactions of various fire and life safety systems in
addition to all of the necessary elements for a comprehensive
commissioning program.

So is commissioning a new buzzword? No, commissioning
is nothing more than a best practices or project management effort that
FPEs have been engaged in for a long time. Commissioning is a quality
assurance or quality control process that verifies completion of work as
specified in either the project specifications or codes and standards
(or both). A formal commissioning program may require documentation in
excess of the norm or pre-functional testing in excess of the minimum
code requirement but commissioning is nothing new.

The basic objectives of commissioning are
to clearly document the needs of the building owner, provide an
organized, documented approach to verification of deliverables, better
documented and more detailed verification of system performance,
improved training of personnel and vastly improved turn-over
documentation. This best practices approach, complete with better
documentation, is the very foundation of commissioning.

About SFPE

SFPE is a global organization representing those practicing in the fields of fire protection engineering and fire safety engineering. SFPE’s mission is to define, develop, and advance the use of engineering best practices; expand the scientific and technical knowledge base; and educate the global fire safety community, in order to reduce fire risk. SFPE members include fire protection engineers, fire safety engineers, fire engineers, and allied professionals, all of whom are working towards the common goal of engineering a fire safe world.